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Does death end everything?

I can not in point of fact absolutly subscribe to the idea that man is done with death. At death indeed he stops breathing, and is he or she finished off?

From those beleive in rebirths think that life continues to live through the next life. And materialsits may have a different opinion and think that death terminates his life.

I have a different view altogether. Man does not become nonexistent with death. Man after death will return to his original from both perspectives, from the perspectives of those believing in souls and those not beleiving in that stuff.

Upon his death man's physical entities or essentials will be immersed in the universality of his cosmic body. It is hard to understand. After death, the water of his body will be merged into the universal water body, his flesh will be cnanged into the universal clay body, the breathe into the universal wind body. He will be at one with the universe. His unit sensation or feeling will be submerged in the universal feeling or sensation.

If you do not subscribe to this idea, tell me when a small river will be merged into a big river or ocean does the water of the small river be nonexistent.

I open this question open to one and all on the forum.

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

This, Blazeofglory, as you know, is an ever recurring question, albeit in various forms but more or else leading to the same end.

It is an unanswerable question, as you also know, at least until revealed to the questioner by personal experience - on a journey from which no one returns.

Now, having said that, you comment - '

.... He will be at one with the universe.

I believe, that we are always at one with the universe, whether we accept it or not. This is where we sell ourselves short by withholding that knowledge to ourselves by not having observed how nature works. We go through life not seeing, or certainly not acting as we are part of a great Universal Intelligence and thereby use its vast benefits..

I am not sure if it were Edison or some other great inventor who when asked from where he got his ideas, he pointed into the air and said - 'from the ether, from the ether'.

I believe the great achievers in this world - sportsmen, artists, musicians, inventors, whomever, have found a way to connect to this intelligence, though some may not be aware of what exactly they are doing when they do. If they did, they would not tend to talk about it for one or two reasons. However, you could say they are 'switched on'.

You can have all the TV's, computers, radios you like, but if they are not switched on, you get nothing. You also get poor results if they are not finely tuned, and to the right wavelength, or internet.

To me, the greatest act we can do for ourselves is to see, accept, and act upon, that we are all part of the universe. We are in it, on it, and with it. When we disobey its laws because we don't recognise it, or feel we are superior to it is like a child not obeying its parents. It brings about disharmony and at some point - retribution, often in ways we can't anticipate.

The greatest discovery we all can make is the discovery of the power of our mind. Don't worry, you will never over reach yourself in this area, nor will you ever regret it.

I think that there is an after life. If not then what we have had on earth will seem for naught! I believe that there is a great designer and that this "God" has something waiting for us on the other side.

"Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God." -Tony Blake

it's merely the beginning, really.
I feel like death ends our physical existence but we still live symbolically (our identity is preserved by our descendents and friends and our work in the world). And then our spirit moves on, to another life I guess, and we still live (but are transformed).

I think that there is an after life. If not then what we have had on earth will seem for naught! I believe that there is a great designer and that this "God" has something waiting for us on the other side.

Poppy, you may be right, and if I use my logic to prove you wrong, I will be wrong, and indeed this is a great question. As for me death is nothigng but immersing in the universal whole. I am that and only seemingly separate from it, in fact not separate organically but only feeling so.

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

it's merely the beginning, really.
I feel like death ends our physical existence but we still live symbolically (our identity is preserved by our descendents and friends and our work in the world). And then our spirit moves on, to another life I guess, and we still live (but are transformed).

What is that that dies. It is only a transformation. The whole concept of death is flawed.

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

I believe in immortality, not because I beleive in God, or in some mythological or religious notions of God. Not the Bibilical or Hindu God. Yet I beleive in immortality. I never die, and the whole notion that living beings die is an idea aI want to prove wrong.

It is only cahnge of forms. You have seen bubbles in the ocean, and after a while the bubbles vanish. That is not death. That is immersion. When he departs , or his physical form disintegrates, all the parts or elements of his body will be submerged or reintegrated into the universal corpus. Do you call this death, the end of everything? I can not convince you. I am wholeheartedly convinced, I was always here, am here and will be here eternally.

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

And Blaze I certainly could not argue that point....just like God was always here, is here and will always be...as God created man in his own image.

Poppy

Yet friend I argue. How dod God create only man in his image. Is it not biasedness to the rest of other living beings. I do not subscribe to this Biblical, Hindu or Momhammadian notion of creation or God's image. This is rubbish.

“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

Yet friend I argue. How dod God create only man in his image. Is it not biasedness to the rest of other living beings. I do not subscribe to this Biblical, Hindu or Momhammadian notion of creation or God's image. This is rubbish.

...and I was only referring to the biblical reference to the creation of man as this is the only one I am accustomed. I think its simply (no pun here) just imagery in that God created all things by design. God is simply my term for the designer. It could be something, someone else to others. I agree that MAN could simply mean the human being, all of GOD's creatures and the entire universes in his Image.

"Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God." -Tony Blake

Though "spiritual" thoughts seem to dominate this thread, I have a different perspective on life and death, and the difference lies in the definitions of life and death.

To me, life is cellular respiration. A single cell organism is alive because the cell has function. A human being is alive because their heart is pumping blood to their brain and other cells making cellular respiration possible. When you "die", cellular respiration ceases. Your cells don't live any more, they decay and become organic waste. Your brain cells don't send chemical/electrical signals to each other, your blood doesn't deliver nutrients to cells, etc.

So if you don't subscribe to the idea of a "soul", then what are you left with at death?

Well, here is where there is a slight negotiation of terms. I believe in the thinker, the watcher. It correlates somewhat with classical ideas of "soul" and /or "mind" within the person. It could be self-awareness and memory that gives humans this "thinker" or "watcher", but there is something in us that has Perspective on our thoughts- we do not live simply by instinct and reaction.

Does this thinker have to be bound by time? We are accustomed to having our waking experiences pass as "time" seems to pass, but our minds have the capability of thinking, or imagining, much faster. Try to recall having a very long dream during a short nap. Or if you have ever been rendered unconscious and had a "vision" or dream during that period of unconsciousness then awoke to find that the experience seemed to last very long while the time you were unconscious was very short.

Death may be the same, but magnified. As your brain dies, your life could literally flash before your eyes as all of the remaining memories are fired off with the dying of neurons and final release of neuro-chemical materials. Thoughts and experiences stored in the brain (be it subconscious or conscious memory) must go somewhere as brain cells cease functioning. As the thinker watches all of this happen, it could last a veritable eternity because there is no more outside stimuli to bolster the passage of time.

First we must accept that there is no known answer, it has defied man's knowledge
for as long as it has occupied his thoughts. ( I am using 'man' as a general term for humans). However, the door is always open to conjecture and so these threads will provide such a platform

That out of the way, I would suggest that the first step is to decide upon which side of the fence you stand in the question - is life an accident, or does it have purpose - a design, a plan?

If one sees it as an 'accident' then there is no need to go further in its contemplation. Anything that followed would be a chain reaction to the first accident. (Or do some believe there was an intelligence lurking in the background, saw the accident and decided to step in and take charge?)

When we step into the realm of conjecture, allowance must be made for many flights of fancy in ideas.

However, let me, at least here, try to keep it as simple as possible. If it isn't an accident, then it must have purpose, a raison d'&#234;tre', an intent. This brings in a form of 'intelligence'. As it is all encompassing, all pervading it must be a 'Universal Intelligence'. You can give it a name, like God, or Yahweh, or whatever your religion preaches.

The next step could be then to work out some purpose. If you belong to some religious body, then that has already been worked out for you, and the decision made.

So this leaves the floaters, that would be those with no strong religious belief but sort of have their own ideas within that religion, or just pick and choose. They like to keep one foot in to play it safe. No problem, there is room for all kinds.

Besides the floaters there are those who do not buy the accident theory, nor do they buy any particular religious doctrine, though they may accept the core moral principles enshrined say in the 'ten commandments' - I don't mean all of ten - just the general ones unrelated to 'God' as a being.

So now we have the 'Intelligence'. It does not have to be a 'being' as having some human form - or any material form. Thought and electricity exist without being visible to the eye. In the room where you are at the moment there are many waves of vision and sound passing back and forth all over, and all around, and through you, yet you can neither see them, or hear them, until you have a switched on, tuned in, suitable receiver.

They are there, they exist, but you cannot see them - even though they pass through you.

So now, do we accept that if there is this 'Universal Intelligence' it has a purpose? I mean what sort of intelligence is it that does not have a raison d'&#234;tre - a reason behind it.

If, and when, we can find a logical reason for it all, then work out to where it can be leading, in other words the WHY. Is it different from any of the accepted and known religions? That done, then surely this is as far as we can go.

Until that day when all will be revealed to us personally. in a condition which removes any need for promises that we will not reveal the truth to others - roll on the theories however wild and woolly

I've yet to see any evidence of reincarnation, an afterlife, anything of that nature so I'm leaning toward consciousness shutting down and us 'disappearing' when we die. In other words, unless you wish to speak of our energy passing onto other things or us living on symbolically (say, if we wrote important books), death is the end.

Does death end everything?

I am by nature, a very sceptical person. I question everything, wether it be God, the after life, the government or anything else. The theories I believe, I've discovered on my own. I very well might be an atheist if I had not experienced so many unexplainable things. For instance, a few years ago when I was growing up, I would have these dreams and the next day everything from my dream would happen. Somthing insignificant, like a red balloon floating down the street and a little boy runnig after it (this actually happened). It made me realize there was some kind of plan, that somehow I had glimpsed or tapped into. I also started having out-of-body experiences, of which I'm sure I was no longer in a physical form. Therefore I believe we go somewhere when our heart stops beating, since I've left my body while still alive. I think all people are capable of doing these things, they just have their blinders on for one reason or another. I've read alot of your posts blaze, and you have some very good opinions (you to Midas) Keep up the open-minded disscusions.

The human race's prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves.
Arnold J. Toynbee

I can not in point of fact absolutly subscribe to the idea that man is done with death. At death indeed he stops breathing, and is he or she finished off?

Upon his death man's physical entities or essentials will be immersed in the universality of his cosmic body. It is hard to understand. After death, the water of his body will be merged into the universal water body, his flesh will be cnanged into the universal clay body, the breathe into the universal wind body. He will be at one with the universe. His unit sensation or feeling will be submerged in the universal feeling or sensation.

But that can only be true if one defines the factor of keeping ones entity from merging as the physical body. Who is to say that one can not stop himself from this hypothetical merge without a body. Can you really assume that one loses his will or his ability to choose without a physical body. Just beacause similar objects are within proximity of each other does not make them part of a whole. In a pile of leaves though they are all the same object and occupy a close proximity they are each a sperate leaf. Can not the same be said with the physical entity just because they do not have have a physical body seperating them from one another does not mean they are not each seperate from one another.

In my thoughts I believe that once death occurs they do all go to a certain place but rather then merging they stay seperate. A place such as heaven is not in my opinion all that far fetch, what makes it hard to grasp is that the thought that actions done with your physical body can directly affect the placement of your physical entity after death. Another problem is that it is almost impossible to prove, it is not exactly the easies thing to die and come back. And those who have (For example have been revived after an accident thus dead for a short while) often when they refer to going to a place such as heaven/hell are often written of as hallucinating from lack of blood flow to the brain. If we can not even skeptically believe those who have died from my stand point we will never have proof of whether there is existence after death